


The Child

by Val_Creative



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alien Gender/Sexuality, Alternate Canon, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, BAMF River Song, Belly Rubs, Complicated Relationships, Emotionally Repressed, Friendship/Love, Hopeful Ending, Humor, Impregnation, Jack Harkness Flirts, Post-Canon, Post-Episode: s12e10 The Timeless Children, Protective River Song, River Song Being River Song, Romance, Sexual Content, Soft Thirteenth Doctor, Thirteenth Doctor Era, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:41:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23726248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Val_Creative/pseuds/Val_Creative
Summary: River Song and Captain Jack Harkness break the Doctor out of prison. That should have been the end to all of the surprises.
Relationships: The Doctor/River Song, Thirteenth Doctor/River Song
Comments: 12
Kudos: 124
Collections: Unusual_Bearings_2020





	The Child

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to the mods of **Unusual Bearings 2020** for letting me join! This allowed me to try writing a ship I've never tried to write for before! I do have a warning for a little bit of gender/body dysphoria for Thirteen. I hope that all of the River/Thirteen fans and anyone reading likes this! 🥰 Any comments/thoughts are welcome!

*

Forcible teleportation makes her ears spin — wait, no, her head. The Doctor gazes at her surroundings, blinking rapidly.

"Judoon…"

She remembers being on the TARDIS. And now, _not_ being on the TARDIS.

"Platoon…"

This is a small, confined area of jagged rocks and metal holding the floor-platform together. Walls carved out of the strongest mineral in any known universe. The _rocks_. The Doctor can vaguely smell their density. Like an old, permeating heat-spice.

"On a moon…?" she recites in a murmur, eyebrows furrowing. "No, no. It isn't a moon."

The Doctor rushes over to the prison-window with ion-charged bars covering it, her hooded lilac-blue trench coat streaming behind her. The energy hums. Her fingers wiggle between them, illuminating in the ion's blueness. Her veins hum along with it.

"Ah. Silly Doctor. You're getting old. Very old," she scolds herself, but gently. With a touch of bright and cheerful nature. "This is a high functioning prison facility… on an asteroid… in the middle of the… the Centraxis system? Is that it?" The Doctor licks her finger, holding it high up to the air and staring off into the nothingness. Her lips flatten thoughtfully as a response.

"Ooohhh… we are a long way from home…"

*

If anything, the Judoon are meticulous about their schedules.

Even for someone like the Doctor in a lifetime imprisonment, they give her meals. Two a day. Most of it is grey, soggy mush loaded with nutrients.

She has to pace her cell to get any exercise. There's no way to measure time, and the Doctor has no qualms with arguing with the guards about a fair trial or speaking back to her own self, imagining multiple plans into existence.

Once they discover the objects in the Doctor's pockets — a monocle, an array of fountain pens, yarn, cotton balls, pushpins, a banana yellow yo-yo, stamps, a box of kitchen matches, live bugs, and seemingly endless possibilities of gadgets invented by the Doctor — they strip it from her, including the Doctor's swiss army sonic and her psychic paper. But thankfully, those items are kept in another inner pocket well-concealed.

She may hate empty pockets, but the Doctor _hates_ losing her coat more.

Schedule, yes. Focus.

_Focus, Doctor._

None of the Judoon guards have come by with a meal.

The Doctor perks up at the sound of a commotion, lifting her chin from the cradle of her hands.

She untwists herself from the ion-blue lit floor, getting to her knees as the prison-door whirs open. Pink cichorium… the Doctor's eyelids flutter shut. Her nostrils flare. That odour… _the pink cichorium flower_ … she helped a desperate, lonely botanist on a mini moon of Delphi… relocated the species in order to save it from extinction… but they were only in the fields of Centauri-Beta… and she only told…

"River…" the Doctor breathes out, eyes reopening. She gazes up.

A woman in a jumpsuit appears, calling out to someone, hoisting a large, smoking gun to her shoulder. It's no prison attire on her. The fabric is soft and bottle green, and tied at the waist fashionably. River's curls seem deep golden in the lack of light.

For the briefest of moments, River gazes back in awe.

And then, she smirks.

"Well, well… gotten yourself into quite a mess, haven't you?"

Hazel eyes linger over the pink, beautiful flower tucked over River's left ear. The Doctor doesn't know why she hasn't said anything yet, still grasping at her knees, feeling all of this warmth suddenly shooting through her. As if somehow, River's gun had gone off inside the Doctor.

Both of her hearts pound so quick. The spinning returns, although more pleasant than before.

"Don't forget me!" Captain Jack Harkness barges in, panting and eager to be heard. He's greying along his hairline, but it's the same navy blue trench coat and that same charismatic, handsome smile. "Unless you already did, old friend."

Finally, the Doctor regains her composure.

"I haven't, Jack," she answers, beaming, standing on her feet as Captain Jack Harkness chuckles and leaps forward in her direction.

He's giddy as ever.

The Doctor lets him embrace her, keeping her hands limp at her sides, until she clears her throat loudly with an awkward, close-lipped smile.

Captain Jack Harkness steps back, clasping the Doctor's upper arms lightly, examining her face.

"You're not a hugger. Got it."

He nods sharply, but never relents on grinning.

"But, golly, are you _beautiful_ …" Captain Jack Harkness says in approval. "I never minded the older men, trust me, but…"

"Careful now," River declares. "That's my wife you're flirting with."

"You can join too, toots." Captain Jack Harkness winks playfully in River's direction, clicking his tongue. She smirks again, joining them, but the Doctor can glimpse something possessive weighing in as River focuses on her, looking the Doctor up and down.

"Hello, sweetie."

The greeting plucks a string of bashfulness within her. Quite uncharacteristic. The Doctor opens her mouth, and then hesitates.

"… my friends," she sighs. Tension floods back into the Doctor's awareness, making her restless and longing to move. To get out of this cell. "My fam. We got separated after defeating the Cybermen. I need to know they're alright."

River notices the worrying, her expression softening.

"Lucky for you… we picked up someone on the way," she tells her, nodding to Captain Jack Harkness.

He leads the way and takes River's gun, tapping into his vortex manipulator. The Doctor goes next, leaving her prison-cell's room, stiffening involuntarily when she senses River's fingers exploring, caressing over her shoulder-blade. But far from hating it.

*

_Her coat!_

The Doctor snatches it from Captain Jack Harkness gleefully, tugging on the heavy, finely stitched material and hugging herself.

She adores the midnight blue and lavender pink of the wool lining, and her rainbow stripes. This is what Ryan and Yasmin helped her find while meandering a thrift shoppe. New clothes. New start. New goals. New companions that were _her own_.

Once they've boarded the TARDIS, the Doctor checks her pockets. All in good order.

She whips out her sonic, turning it on and proudly observing its scanner working as it should. According to River and Captain Jack Harkness, they negotiated with the Judoon. But knowing River… it wasn't much of a negotiation. Not for the Judoon anyway.

"Ohhh, it's good to be back!" the Doctor shouts, forgetting everyone else to go to the console. "I thought this whole ordeal would end up with me and a death squadron! Again!" She places a hand to it, listening to her TARDIS let out a quiet, happy series of beeps.

"I know… I've missed you too," she whispers, stroking a thumb over one of the levers.

Captain Jack Harkness stares up at the yellow-glow crystals, impressed. "What's next? Heading to Earth?"

"I'll put it in," the Doctor informs him, reaching for another lever and pulling over her screen.

River laughs, tilting her head. "You never stop fussing about the controls…"

"Oi!" The Doctor peeks to her, scrunching her nose and frowning. "I'll do it as I like! It's my TARDIS!"

"That I've piloted without you many, many times." A hint of mischief in River's slow, easy grin. "Need I remind you about the brakes, dear?" Despite her mild indignation, the Doctor finds herself grinning back and returning to her navigation screen.

"No. No, I remember.…"

The tippity-tap of River's silver, strappy heels.

She waits to turn, doing so by instinct when River moves in, their noses almost grazing.

The other woman stretches a hand to the Doctor's right side, by her hip, flipping one of the console's switches.

"Then stop leaving your brakes on," River murmurs her complaint, each syllable gusting hot, fragrant air against the Doctor's mouth.

"I like the noise…" the Doctor insists. She lifts her chin solemnly and watching every line of River's face. This is like a game between them. For dominance. For testing boundaries. She can hear the steadiness, the twin pulses of River's own hearts.

They're interrupted by the TARDIS landing and separate. Captain Jack Harkness wanders back to the control room.

"I definitely need to see the cheeky one again," he says.

"Ryan or Graham?"

"Yes," Captain Jack Harkness announces smugly.

*

It's true. She's not a hugger.

To be fair… any kind of physical intimacy has never been her strong suit. Maybe it should be… maybe it shouldn't have to be… the Doctor doesn't know. She barely knows herself anymore, or her past, or where the truth can be sought…

Yasmin runs into her arms.

She latches onto the Doctor, as soon as Graham and Ryan have finished throwing themselves against the Doctor out of relief.

They assumed she was dead.

They didn't hear from the Doctor for three and a half years.

_It's like she had never existed at all._

Sheffield basks in morning's light, heating the dew glistening from oaks and field maples. In the background, the Doctor can hear Captain Jack Harkness flirting with a startled but flattered Ryan. "I thought we lost you," Yasmin mumbles tearfully.

She buries her face into the crook of the Doctor's neck. Her head tucks there.

The Doctor stays where she is and keeps her arms tightly round Yasmin, embracing Yasmin's pain as well. It's what needs to be done.

"Of course you didn't lose me, Yaz," the Doctor whispers, combing her fingertips to Yasmin's braid. "It's alright."

Her show of kindness attracts the interest of a sympathetic, silent River.

"… I'll explain everything."

*

Her timeship settles, orbiting among the stars of the Milky Way.

(And in the depths of the winding, organic corridors, her friends are either sleeping or socialising with each other. Mostly Captain Jack Harkness. Ryan has gotten used to the obvious flirting, daring to _flirt back_ — much to Graham's exasperation.)

She hasn't come down to the TARDIS's drawing room in at least two lifetimes. Her private study.

No one had been allowed in except for Amy…

 _Amelia Pond_ …

It hits the Doctor like a Sontaran pressure-pinch to her chest… her and Rory… brilliant and beautiful and _gone_ before their time…

She was so sure… _so sure_ … they would be with her… until the Doctor regenerated…

The Doctor feels tears burning in her eyes, sniffling and turning away to her mementos on the shelves.

Objects collected during her adventures and travels like an Ood translator and a harpsichord and a Dalek eyestalk, a scarf from a past life knitted by Madame Nostradamus… a lime green water pistol used in Pompeii… Liz Ten's face mask… all those bits and bobs… the Doctor kept everything if she could. To _remember_ how far she's come. Mostly it's a hoarding pattern.

In the dimness of her study… hers, but not entirely _hers_ … the Doctor glimpses a familiar amber-brown shine.

A Time Lord staff. The language of the Gallifreyian people detailing its crystal-like shape.

Hazel eyes widen.

They're not her people. None of them.

She was killed, over and over, by someone who took her in. Experimented on, tortured, mind-wiped and lied to for centuries.

The Doctor seizes onto the handle, lifting it with both hands and trying to contain her quivering. Rage blares inside her skull. The Master's rage. _C'mon. C'mon, Doctor._ She can hear him, pleading for her to break apart the staff. To destroy a legacy. _C'mon._

With a low scream of frustration, the Doctor hurls the Time Lord staff across the room. Far from her. She can't be trusted.

Not like this.

Her cheeks burn hot. She gasps for air, and it sounds like ugly half-sobs to her ears, bending over and rubbing the heels of her palms to dry eyelids. Nothing makes sense. The only thing that does is her friends _being here with her_ after everything.

They're willing to forgive her.

"You look tired, dear."

River steps in, holding the end of her silky, shimmery robe and sweeping it around herself. Lily white.

She's a vision, with her loose and golden ringlets down, with her noble brow, and the Doctor can admit she's often put off by how _lovely_ River is. In a good way. River seemed too spectacular and alive to touch with bare hands. Like a nova of bright, colourful particles erupting.

"M'fine," the Doctor says hoarsely, lowering her hands and peeling off her trench coat. Exposing the burgundy top covered in a long line of rainbow stripes and the mustard yellow suspenders. "It's been a long day… no, _no_ , life," she prattles on. "Very long."

"Don't you think you've earned some rest?"

"No," the Doctor murmurs. She stares at River's grim expression fading into benevolence.

The other woman seats herself on a chaise, patting the available space. As if beckoning her forward. The Doctor doesn't move at first, inhaling sharply, observing River as if aching. There's the slightest protrusion of River's nipples through the white silk.

"Then you're wrong, Doctor." River flashes a broad, marvelous grin. "And I know how much you hate to be told that."

A new flush of warmth cascades through the Doctor. She smiles, not knowing what to make of this, but joins River wordlessly, looking down and rolling her neck. River's fingers make a careful, slow exploration, thumbing off the Doctor's suspenders.

"Have you?" she asks.

The Doctor emits a confused noise, gazing over to her. "Have I…?"

"Made love…" River, predictably, slips off her robe without hesitation and raises an eyebrow. She's all naked, warm skin. The Doctor cannot move. She's paralysed where she is, eyes flicking from River's collarbones to her lips. "In this body…"

"I…"

River's fingers hover up, caressing over the Doctor's gilded, starry ear-cuff.

"Yes, dear?"

She waits, playing with the thin, fragile chain, glancing into the Doctor's hazel eyes and scrutinising every emotion.

That's how the Doctor feels now. Worn out. Moments from _breaking_.

River leans in, further signaling permission, and the Doctor — for once — won't overthink it. Won't talk her way out of her embarrassment.

She presses herself to River's mouth, blinking out the haze filming in her senses and holding the closemouthed kiss. A grinning River is the one to pull away. Their legs shift together. That's when another kiss falls to the Doctor's mouth, intensifying, tingling her down to her toes. She brackets her hands to River's softly powdered cheeks, breathing raggedly, feeling the other woman unbuttoning the Doctor's capri trousers.

Stiffening up, the Doctor drops a hand to grasp firmly onto River's fingers.

"Nervous?" River asks, muffling out a laugh. It vibrates a shock of exquisite heat against the Doctor's chin.

"… _You're a menace_ ," the Doctor tells her, unable to suppress a wide and girlish smile. Boyish. Them-ish. " _A right menace_."

Somehow that comment only heightens River's pulses. She slyly tugs the Doctor in. This isn't the proper place for what means to happen — eventually, they find another room in the TARDIS where the wall-roundels glow in low shades of blush and aurelian.

Overthinking comes naturally to the Doctor.

She yanks off her long-sleeved, white undershirt and the high-waisted trousers. Brown, lace-up boots, along with her blue-striped socks and underthings. "Stop," River whispers, seeming cross, gathering the Doctor's hands into hers and squeezing their entwined fingers. " _Stop that, Doctor_. I know what you're doing—you're trying to shut me out. And everything else."

A twinge of guilt scrunches up the Doctor's features.

"Not now—you're _not_ doing this _right now_ —"

"Too much has happened, River. It's all different," she admits quietly. "I'm different." The weight of her discoveries and her truth, and all of those lives lost to the Doctor's memory, crashes around her. "I'm not the same Doctor you knew or loved."

River's own eyes visibly dampen, but she remains unyielding.

"I'm not asking you to be," River insists, shaking her head in disbelief and laughing.

Silly, silly Doctor.

"I know what regeneration does. I remember _who_ I was before I became who I am in front of you. You are the _same_ to me." River's grin exposes her teeth. "And that is the same… _pain in my arse_ … I have to follow round the universe… so you don't end up losing your head."

A breathless, amused noise escapes the Doctor before she can contain it.

"If you want to leave… you can, Doctor. I won't ask you to stay."

There's a bit of cleverness lingering on the tip of the Doctor's tongue. A retort. Few of them. She swallows, making her decision, bringing River's hand clutched to her mouth and kissing down. Over her palm, wrist, and an occasional knuckle.

She kisses the faintest scars marring River's skin, her arm and her neck.

River rumbles out a deep, pleased groan, helping the Doctor straddle over her, legs apart. Nothing left between them. Barriers, clothing or otherwise, vanish in the rising tide. Honey-yellow strands of the Doctor's hair obscure her face.

She trembles in the knowledge, the nakedness of herself against River.

That _vulnerability_. Intimacy.

She's afraid.

She's always been afraid of loving and losing those most precious. "River," the Doctor murmurs, feeling that pluck of bashfulness again.

"Oh, sweetie…"

The other woman tuts, combing back the Doctor's hair. She loops honey-yellow strands over her earlobes.

They shift, meeting hips and lips, easing into a slow, unfamiliar rhythm. Heat. Heat between them. The Doctor's mouth slacks open. She thrusts against River, clenching up a little and shuddering when River's forefinger and middle finger touch her. Sliding through moisture, probing.

Lying down against the cot, River kisses the Doctor and holds her, tasting of earthy, voltaic atmosphere and cream lipstick.

_Something else._

There's _something else_ deeper inside River that feels like pure and unbridled energy.

 _What is it_ _…?_

She wants to awaken it, coax it out of River and pinpoint the source for herself.

The Doctor can feel whatever this energy is, brimming, threatening to overflow. It seeks heat.

 _Newness_.

River arches beneath her, reveling in her sexual need, nudging her thumb over the Doctor's clitoris, pleasuring her. The Doctor's fingers sink into her golden ringlets. She's speaking, or moaning out and writhing, touching herself as well, but the Doctor can only sense whatever this is.

Growing… expanding…

Reaching out for the Doctor.

*

Even if her past is uncertain, the Doctor knows her own body. How it functions.

She can _feel_ what's happening.

"Ohhh." Her sonic activates. The Doctor waves it over herself, frowning, hearing a noisy whir towards her abdomen. " _Ohh_."

*

"It's fine."

The Doctor strolls down one of the corridors, muttering frantically and shoving her hands into her coat-pockets.

"Fine, s'fine— _it's not fine_ ," she confesses, letting out a loud, indignant groan and tilting back her head until her neck protests. Her teeth expose, gritting. The Doctor halts mid-step, rubbing over her furrowed brow. "It's not fine _at all_ —"

She couldn't blame this on the TARDIS or the Space-Time Vortex. The old girl is just as baffled as the Doctor is.

Unusual pregnancies are standard. Have to be. There will be two more hearts beating inside the Doctor soon enough.

She can already sense this child forming. The realisation slams into her.

 _The child_.

There's a real, living child _inside_ her.

The Doctor hitches up her lilac-blue hood, pulling the material down over her head and face, trying to not panic.

Her body felt strange before this. The Doctor wasn't used to presenting… like this. Getting called ma'am. She's _not_ a ma'am. She's _the Doctor_. She doesn't have a binary human gender. And she wasn't supposed to get _pregnant_ through River Song.

"It will be fine, Doctor—" the Doctor mutters, her voice strengthening and lowering her hood. She keeps moving.

*

The kitchen has rodents. Well, it did. Tiny space rats from Beltox who ate the cheddar and swept up after themselves with their tails. One of them even told the Doctor his name. Last she heard, they were building a colony in one of the storage rooms.

But now, the TARDIS's kitchen just has Captain Jack Harkness roaming about. Without his shirt.

"Doctor!" he yells happily. "Fancy meeting you here!"

In his arm, Captain Jack Harkness lugs up gigantic strawberries, a bowl of steaming noodles, and one large canister of water. His pecs and arm-muscles bulge. "I'll be outta here in a second; I was just grabbing—"

He stops dead in his tracks, now gawking at the Doctor, nearly dropping his items.

"— _you had sex_."

"What?" the Doctor squeals, making an absurd face.

" _You_ , Doctor— _you_ had sex," Captain Jack Harkness declares smugly. He nods. "Recently."

Her mouth forms into a small, tight 'O'.

"Call it a gift. I've got a bloodhound sense for this." Captain Jack Harkness sets down his items with another pile on a kitchen countertop, ripping open the vinegar crisps with a flourish. "Do I get to hear the details? Hmm? Was it any good?" he asks cheerfully, popping a crisp into his mouth and grinning wryly. "Was it the silver-haired fox?"

" _Jack_ —"

"Wishful thinking. At least for me. But, no, I have sadly not been doing the deed with you. Thanks for reminding me." Captain Jack Harkness sighs dramatically and gazes at the ceiling, and then perks up. "Was it the cheeky one?" he asks. "Ryan?"

"Absolutely not!" the Doctor shouts, completely offended. "I'm not sleeping with Ryan! Or Graham for that matter!"

"Glad to hear it because I've got my eye on Graham. He's quite the kisser."

Captain Jack Harkness hums, smacking his lips thoughtfully as he chews on another salty vinegar crisp.

"That leaves Yasmin Khan."

A flustered, high-pitched noise escapes the Doctor's mouth. She refuses to play along, grumpily narrowing her eyes.

"Huh. _Interesting_. I'm out of guesses if we aren't counting River."

A sliver of ice hardens the Doctor's tone. "You should stop guessing," she murmurs, as if warning him, glaring directly into Captain Jack Harkness's face while the Doctor passes him for the stove-top. The burners are mostly functional on a good day.

"Ohoho! Someone's a cranky Time Lord!" Captain Jack Harkness beams, unfazed. He watches, folding his arms, as she rummages for processed cheese and butter and eggs in the TARDIS's oversized refrigerator. Turning on the heat and banging her pan onto the stove-top forcefully, melting the butter first. "Lady, _sorry_ ," he corrects himself, wincing. "Time Lady."

The Doctor focuses on her task, keeping her eyes on the sizzling, metallic surface.

"It doesn't matter what you call me…"

Captain Jack Harkness glances to her with open sympathy.

"You good though?" he asks.

"Tired," the Doctor says monotonously, wiping her forehead with the back of her wrist. "Achy. Nauseous." She cracks an egg one-handed into the buttery pan. "Dizzy. Experiencing mood swings. I'm pretty sure I'm missing my eighth and twelfth rib when they dissolved inside my body last night. Woke up without them." The Doctor wrinkles her nose. "Nasty shock."

Silence follows. Captain Jack Harkness thinks over what she's told him, snatching up a Leophantos nectarine.

"Wait—are you _PREGNANT_ —?" he blurts out, stopping himself from taking a delicious, sour-sweet bite.

" _SHHH_!" The Doctor curls her upper lip into a hiss, spinning to a now dumbfounded Captain Jack Harkness and gesturing wildly with her metallic-grey spatula. "Oi! Keep that to yourself, will you!" She huffs, turning back her pan and clumsily folding a bit of cheddar cheese on top of the frying egg. "I don't want anyone to worry. They shouldn't. Most of all my gang."

"… Should we be worried?" Captain Jack Harkness asks her determinedly, forgetting about his nectarine. Even with his apprehension, he breathes out a laugh. "I mean… your baby isn't gonna be the end of the time and space… right, Doctor?"

"Of course not," the Doctor says. Her mouth quirks down. "Well, hopefully not," she adds. "Maybe not— _uugh_! Let me be!"

"Hello, sweetie."

Both of the Doctor's hearts stutter.

She gazes over to River listening in on their conversation from the far-end of the kitchen, her golden ringlets pinned up.

"Congrats, Doctor," Captain Jack Harkness says, pecking her cheek quickly and fleeing the scene.

Her fried egg slowly smokes, blackening around the edges, as she and River stare vacantly at each other.

"I expect I don't need to ask if you were going to tell me," River announces. Disappointment and something similiar to perturbation in River's eyes. She hurries to where the Doctor is, moving around, switching off the burner. "How are you feeling?"

That's an innocent enough question. Sensible. But all the Doctor can think about is the Daleks returning to the universe with new armour, the Cybermen and their war, Ruth, Gallifrey on fire and the dead, the Master's rage she carries inside her _and his pain_ … the Master's pain for both her and himself and their shared history… the _injustice_ of what happened to the Doctor…

"Custard creams," the Doctor interrupts her own memories, scrunching her lips together. She misses the bewilderment on River. "There's a foot pedal under the console system. One custard cream each time you press down… I dunno why it's only one…"

"And?" River says encouraging, sensing more to this information.

"… I threw up my biscuit."

The Doctor looks ashamed. Well and truly ashamed.

"Oh, you poor dear," River coos, smiling prettily and holding the side of the Doctor's face. "We'll get through this somehow."

*

More adventures wait on the horizon. Traveling, running for the stars and constellations — it never ends.

Captain Jack Harkness promises they'll meet again, winking to Ryan and Graham. Her friends return to modern day Earth for now, visiting their family and friends, getting jobs. Yasmin exclaims the Doctor is " _out of commission_ " but teasingly.

She's showing.

Or at least that's what River calls it when the Doctor pulls up her undershirt and examines her own belly. Her hands map over the size and shape. Pale. Round. Noticeably heavy. Very much full of a baby. She resists the millionth urge to scan the womb, collecting data and active readings.

River ends up prying the sonic out of the Doctor's hands.

*

Kinstarno — she's missed Kinstarno.

Tropical planet with jungles in the south and plateaus of endless, shining beaches on the opposite end. Their sands glowed aqua-blue in the moonlight. A dwarf, rocky moon. The magenta waters felt hot and soothing to the Doctor's muscles.

Any life forms on Kinstarno: the sentient, peace-loving trees in the numerous coasts of jungles.

They didn't mind River or the Doctor popping by, rainbathing, holding conversations with the trees while wringing out their hair.

"Do you want this?" River whispers, her lashes fluttering together as she glances down. River curls up with the Doctor on a towel, sheltered by a rainbow-striped umbrella. Oil gleams on River's fingers massaging over the Doctor's pregnant stomach.

Instead of the past, the Doctor focuses on River, and the child who squirms eagerly at the sound of her wife's voice.

"… I reckon so," the Doctor admits, the corners of her mouth upturning.

*


End file.
